What I found on the prairie

On July 29, as we were driving north on Interstate 35 just past Howard Ln., we suddenly saw on our right some Liatris mucronata plants that were flowering a bit ahead of schedule.* The next day I went back with my camera to the tract that I call the Pflugerville Prairie and took a bunch of pictures. The one shown here plays off the gayfeathers or blazing-stars, as they’re known, against a colony of greenthread, Thelesperma filifolium, a species that has been having a summer resurgence in many places around Austin in recent weeks.

———–

* This wasn’t freakishly before the usual time, as you saw in a post in May, but just a matter of weeks.

It might seem that I have a camera permanently attached to my hand, Cindy, but I’ll confess that I don’t. When we caught sight of the flowers we were on our way to lunch at the house of some friends, so I’d left my equipment home. In any case, I’m glad you like the combination of the purple and yellow.

Sorry you’re having trouble growing these, Lynda. I’m happy enough knowing some places where they spring up on their own. Unfortunately, most of those locations will eventually get built on, as some already have.

Interesting that at the bottom of the stalks, where the buds still are closed, they so closely resemble broadleaf plantain. The feathery green spikes here aren’t as fuzzy as the hairs on the other plantain you showed us, but they’re still quite a lovely detail.

[…] of two wildflowers. The spiky ones were Liatris mucronata, called gayfeather and blazing-star, a photograph of which you saw in its fresh state on this same property four months ago. The many spherical seed head […]